I did something rather unusual for the New Year this year. I changed all my passwords. Well, I changed most of them anyway or, at the very least, modified them a bit. I have several Gmail accounts you see, each used for different purposes (no, nothing dirty or underhanded so get that thought right out of your head) and I can’t say that any of these accounts have ever been compromised but what the heck? Now no one can say that I don’t take security seriously (Oh, I do, I do!).

Then a good friend of mind who runs a rather popular blog mentioned to me during a chat that he was getting a lot of unauthorized login attempts on his WordPress powered site. People trying to break in to the back end of his blog by going through his login page in other words. I asked him how he knew this and he told me of a certain WordPress plugin he uses that can not only be set to limit login attempts and locking the login page after so many failed attempts, etc, etc but can set to log these lockouts and send email notifications to you about such things as well. And he had a long list of locked out attempts to prove it.

My, my, it must be nice being so popular.

So I had to install this marvelous little plugin myself just to see how many underhanded folks were trying to break into my little corner of the world. I installed the plugin straight away and then sat back in great anticipation, dreaming of having my own long list of lockouts to gaze upon and admire. One day went by and then another and then yet another. The morning of the fourth day dawned and…

…nothing.

Absolutely nothing, nada, zip. No attempts, no one even knocking at the door. I’m so disappointed. Obviously I’m not controversial enough for anyone to bother with hacking into my site in order to teach me a lesson I so richly deserve, etc, etc yada, yada. And here I was all ready to be righteously indignant about all these break in attempts and to write many posts about the utter audacity of those who would do such a thing and so on and so forth. But now I have no reason to [sigh].

Oh…wait. I have a lockout! Just a minute while I check i…What?!? The IP listed leads directly to my own web host??!!? How DARE they!! (righteous indignation flares). I shall call them forthwith and have at them I say…sputter, mutter, grumble, mumble!

Life is good once more.

(And yes, this is a very silly post but I just couldn’t help myself)

I was seriously considering installing the new “SOPA Blackout” plugin for WordPress but after even more serious consideration I realized that it probably wouldn’t make much difference either way. I mean really, who’d see it? Am I Wikipedia? Am I Google? Heh, I think not.

So, Happy Blackout Day everyone! I sincerely hope people will get the right idea from it. Control online piracy? Sure. Give the government and the big media carte blanche to do this? Absolutely not!

If you haven’t heard much about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) or PIPA (Protect IP Act) it’s really not that surprising. It’s very possible that the forces behind this bill have been pressuring the main stream media, the ones that aren’t already in their back pocket that is, to keep quiet about these two pieces of legislation that are going up for a vote near the end of this month. In a nut shell, these legislations basically give big media corporations carte blanche to  prosecute and shutdown any site, anywhere, for any reason as long as the stated reason has anything to do at all with stopping online piracy. It will also allow them to sue any owner/owners of a site/social site for anything posted by any owner/user of said sites that are perceived as violations of the above two acts. Then they can legally shut down the site.

Well, there goes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs and just about everything else on the Internet, right? Except them of course.

Alright, so there might be just a bit of be exaggerating in my last line there but then again–there might not be at that. Think about it. Would you want our Internet with all it’s freedoms, laid into the hands of entities like the RIAA? You know, the corporation that believes it’s alright to sue a student or a single mother for example, millions of dollars for what the RIAA perceived (right or wrong) as illegally downloading a few songs off the Internet? And then actually winning the lawsuit in court? Guilty or not, this a ludicrous example of “abuse of power” that’s beyond any sort of reason. And now certain so-called public servants in Washington want to put the Internet in the hands of the RIAA and their ilk? Oh hey, what a great idea.

The powers of the lobbyists do boggle the mind.

Putting aside my personal opinions on the matter and the fact that I’ve been fighting this legislation tooth and nail since it first appeared on the scene (under various names and labels) over the past year or so, here’s a well done and objective informational video on the subject of what SOPA/PIPA is and what it might mean for the future of the Internet if it passes.

And in a rare departure from non-political/purely objective/WordPress-only posts, Jane Wells of WordPress wrote a rather thought provoking post about this on the official WordPress News blog which includes the above video and several links to more information on the subject.

If you haven’t heard of this yet it will be to your advantage to find out as much as you can about before the legislation is voted on the 24th of January, 2012. Once informed, contact your senator and tell them to vote against these ludicrous pieces of legislation. There’s already several laws in place that allows the big media types to fight against online piracy so there’s certainly no need to hand them the entire Internet on a silver platter along with a gold flecked invitation stating, “Here it is then. Now go for it.“.

Ah, yes. My very favorite family in the whole wide world. The Addams Family. And it’s creator, Charles Addams, celebrates his hundredth birthday today…or he would have if he were still alive…which he isn’t by the way. But if he was I’m sure he would have enjoyed it.

I have to admit that there’s a small, happily dark part of me that wouldn’t have minded one bit if I had been a member of such a family with all their secret little powers and rather unique outlook on life. Even when I was but a wee little thing I had this attraction since I had been introduced to the works of Charles Addams very early in life.

My father had one of the original books of Addams cartoons which I managed to dig out one day when I was about 5 years of age. Big old thing with a dark gray cover and an illustration of the Addams Family on the front. It had an immediate affect on me and I couldn’t wait to submerse myself into the pages of this macabre world of what I saw on the front of the book. I just had to have more of this.

I wasn’t the least disappointed.

I became a rather rabid fan of the old Addams Family TV series when it debuted the same year I turned 5. I thought it beat The Munsters right out and besides, I thought Carolyn Jones as Morticia was just that much hotter than Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster–even at the ripe old ages of 5 through 7 (both series ran from 1964 to 1966). It’s good to know that as an adult, my opinion in this matter has never changed. I’d take Morticia Addams over Lily Munster any day of the week (Figuratively!. I’m speaking figuratively here, now!)

Fully understanding that my “normal” life (I’m never quite what you’d call ‘normal’) is a full and happy one (it is), there’s still that small part of me who wouldn’t mind being a part of the family that was first cooked up in the imagination of Charles Addams. It let’s me appreciate the more macabre side of life and if you haven’t noticed–life can get pretty macabre at times.

Just a short note here saying that I’ll be rather busy over the next two days while my wife and I dismantle Christmas. And this year it isn’t just a matter of removing Christmas from the house and a small quilt shop, oh no indeed. This year it’s removing Christmas from a rather large store front that the quilt shop moved into last month. So although the removal process at the house remains the same, the removal process at the new store involves both of us, a couple of step ladders and a bit of a balancing act on both our parts and this takes time–especially the balancing act.

I’m also forgoing my main source of inspiration for posts this weekend–reading the news. I found myself feeling terribly depressed of late so I thought I’d give it a break and it seems to be working well–I feel much better about things already. So I’ll see you all in a few days unless of course I fail to balance correctly during the dismantling process and then I’ll see you as soon as I can stop taking  pain medications for the leg I broke falling off the step ladder.

Happy New Year then.